Cheryl
""We already import fish, fruit and vegetables to meet our needs."

Yeah, I just can't go a day without Russian caviar, Israeli dates and - Jeez, we don't bloody import vegetables unless they're in tins. Pickled walnuts? Who wrote this?

You've really got to sharpen up as this is silly."

You have expensive tastes.

Over 25% of fresh fruit and vegetables we consume are imported as reported by the ABC, Victorian government and on previous threads - Oranges, grapes, asparagus, tomatoes, cherries etc. now they are talking about apples from China and New Zealand is taking Australia to court over the blocking of importing of apples.
And we imported 68000 tonnes of fish in 2006 and it was not caviar!!
Cheryl go and do some research just walk down the isles of the local supermarket as they state where it comes from then perhaps you only eat out of tins.

Well said Bruce,

You are right. It proves my point the internet has the subtext "have prejudice will rant not thought required"

Tranveer's piece refers to a specific group of wanna be migrants. There is no real link to refugees much less Asylum seekers, claiming doesn't make it so.

Some Sri Lankans are indeed asylum seekers most are refugees (as are some Afghans) and yes there will be some who are opportunists. The trick is to establish the differences.

Clearly simply turning off the tap and thereby turning our back on those in true need is unacceptable.

As Tranveer points out our schizophrenic attitude towards migration, in that we as Govt policy favouring the backdoor method of o/seas student migration, shows us to be more exploitative than genuinely caring i.e. Elitist/opportunistically exploitist rather than Humane.

It seems to have slipped off the radar that the student backdoor migration is bipartisan Govt policy leaving the agenda to the extremists who prefer victimization rather than civilized debate.

They say Politics makes strange bed fellows, this issue is a good example. Those who are concerned about sustainable Population levels need to be mindful of Ben Franklin's dictum about "dogs and fleas". Especially when it comes to who and what issues they support.

Ludwig

<< It just defied all logic. There was a policy that was working. It had virtually stopped all boats from coming, so just about no one was being affected by detention, TPVs, etc. >>

This statement demonstrates once again, Ludwig, how myopic your thinking is and how, despite your protestations to the contrary, it just doesn't extend any further than Australia's borders.

Just because people weren't being detained on the mainland, doesn't mean to say they weren't being severely affected. They were and in large numbers. Hundreds spent long miserable years on Nauru with no hope for their future and many still suffer the effects of their abandonment on that hellhole.

Despite your glib assurances, the boats never stopped coming. Yes, numbers waxed and waned, as 'push' factors are never constant, and yes, Howard's cruelty did have some deterrence effect. Boats still kept arriving in Indonesia though right throughout this period. The main difference was that if they tried to continue on they were turned back. We didn't hear about it but it happened unabated, and does to this day. Keeping your precious borders secure, Ludwig, comes at a huge cost in lives, one way or the other. It needs to be acknowledged and not glossed over, as it always is with you.

Thousands of asylum seekers at any one time are stranded in Indonesia. Even when they've been assessed as genuine refugees, they're still been detained, many in truly awful circumstances, and for years on end, some up to nearly a decade now. The ones that can't take it any more eventually succumb to the constant coercion to return to their homeland, and again, we hear nothing about the huge numbers that are returned to danger. But the one NGO that has followed this up in Afghanistan found quite a number had been killed. Of the majority who leave no trace and are impossible to track down, no-one really knows their fate, but it's not too hard to guess.

TBC

Ludwig (continued)

You can rabbit on all you like, Ludwig, about how good Howard's policies were for Australia, but don't try and pretend they were good for asylum seekers too. They weren't. They directly contributed to enormous suffering and death. And don't come back with the usual retort that stopping the boats saves lives. As we've seen demonstrated clearly just recently, asylum seekers are prepared to risk their lives, when their only alternative is either years of warehousing in an overcrowded Indonesian detention centre, where their treatment ranges from indifference through to brutality, or refoulement back to danger.

Additionally, 'stopping' the boats at source only means more people in ever more crowded refugee camps for ever longer periods of time. Already the average length of stay is seventeen years and rising. It doesn't affect us here. It's out of sight and out of mind, but again it's another massive layer of suffering that needs to be acknowledged. For many, their lives in these camps are truly horrendous and hope barely exists.

I'd love it too if all the boats 'stopped' coming, but unfortunately for me, and others like me, my thinking doesn't begin and end with Australia's borders. I'm all too aware of the suffering caused by the cruel and simplistic turn-the-boats-back 'solution'. It doesn't stop the boats. It just redirects their displaced human cargo somewhere else.

We need a little more honesty from you, Ludwig. Why don't you admit once and for all that you don't care what happens to those displaced people, so long as it happens somewhere else where you don't have to be reminded of it?

Well, I'll continue to be that little thorn in your side, Ludwig. I'll keep reminding you. :)

“The restrainer on curtailing numbers for the on-shore refugee program is in the 1951 UN Convention. The central part of it is that a refugee cannot be 'refouled', or returned to his home state.”

Yes Peter Hume, the Convention has nothing to say about the numbers of people moving into or towards a country. There is no consideration given to the effects that this may have on the host country’s economy, social fabric, environmental carrying capacity, etc.

I don’t think non-refoulement is the central part of this. The problem is the lack of facility for a country to stop or regulate movements of asylum seekers if significant negative consequences are likely.

This is an enormous shortcoming of the Convention. There has got to be a balance between accommodating refugees and upholding or at least not seriously damaging the abovementioned factors in a country of refuge.

“Whether the person arrived legally or illegally is irrelevant to the question whether he has the legal status of refugee.”

This is pretty absurd when you think about it.

I’d like all laws to apply strictly as they are written. But there are all manner of examples where it just doesn’t happen – where what is in black and white and what is administered are quite different things.

As it applies to the highly flawed Refugee Convention which if taken literally, would expose us to an open-ended number of asylum seekers, it is actually much better to bend it a bit than to strictly observe it.

But of course you are right – we should cut the crap of pretending that we are adhering to the Convention’s standards and we should be striving to bring the Convention into line with reality and practicality….and seriously consider withdrawing from it until this happens.

“I now view being a signatory to the convention as being little more than another pull factor - something that signals we are more willing than some to accept refugees.”

Interesting rstuart. I’d never really thought of it like that. But it makes sense.

I think that we could mount a very good case for pulling out of the Convention, not least so that we could implement strong border protection that is not interpreted as being in conflict with our international agreements, so that we can bring an end to onshore asylum seeking and alleviate concerns about the rate of arrivals significantly increasing and/or just going on and on for years.

If this was done in tandem with increased international aid expenditure, directed at assisting the most needy of refugees and at the causal factors of refugeeism, and if our formal intake of refugees was increased by a few thousand, then the whole package could be sold as a much-improved humanitarian effort.

We can exit the 1951 Convention, work towards updating it so that we can sign up to a 2010 Refugee Convention, secure our borders and greatly improve our efforts to assist refugees, all at the same time.

Surely this is the direction that Rudd should be pursuing, rather than continuing to make a real hash of this whole saga!

….
Hi Bronwyn. We’ve discussed this issue numerous times on this forum over the last four years. The last time was only very recently. I made exhaustive efforts to nut it right out with you. I had to really push to get you to respond to some of the hard questions and to continue with the discussion. The great flaws in your arguments were laid bare. Enough is enough. I'll leave it to others to respond to you.